Why No Excuse

No Excuse is a blog focusing on poverty and poverty issues in Hamilton, Ontario. Look here daily for news items, events, resources, and a chance to engage in discussions with others on local poverty issues. No Excuse was originally staff-written when it was launched in 2007 as part of the Hamilton Spectator's Poverty Project, but it is now a community blog written by people who come from all walks of city life, but share a deep concern for poverty issues. See "Who Are We" for more information about our authors.

February 2007

February 28, 2007

A summer job programme that began as a response to gang shootings and murders in Toronto is being expanded to Hamilton this year and could provide work for as many as 193 youths from low-income neighbourhoods here.The announcement was made this morning by Minister of Children and Youth Services Mary Anne Chambers. Chambers said the province is committing almost $900,000 a year to fund the expansion of two programmes (Summer Jobs for Youth and Youth in Policing) to Hamilton. Similar announcements are likely to be made in the other four cities the programmes are expanding to — Ottawa, London, Windsor and Thunder Bay.The province's re-entry into the summer job field (something they used to do in very large numbers back in the 70s and 80s) was sparked by the so-called "Summer of the Gun" in Toronto that saw a spike in gang-related shootings and killings in certain Toronto inner-city neighbouroods. The programmes include funding for a number of outreach workers who will assist youth in accessing these jobs and relevant city and provincial services.I do kind of wonder about one piece: The Youth in Policing programme (which places teens in clerical jobs in the police department) is only available to kids who have a clean criminal record, in order to reward teens who keep their noses clean.Hmmm. That makes sense if you're dealing with middle class kids whose lives rarely intersect with crime or criminals. But I wonder how useful it is among teens who live in higher crime situations?My colleague Carmella Fragomeni is working the story today — watch for her report in the paper tomorrow.You can read the government's version of the story after the jump.

Tomorrow morning a few thousand student volunteers from Engineers Without Borders will hit the streets and subway and bus platforms across the country in a one day awareness-raising event that will challenge Canadians to envision the end of extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1 a day - a condition shared by well over 1 billion people).In Hamilton a group of energetic McMaster student members of EWB will start their day by corralling commuters and shoppers near Jackson Square, handing out copies of an imaginary newspaper's March 1st 2025 edition announcing the End of Extreme Poverty. After 90 minutes on the streets, the students will return to McMaster a lunch hour event outside the John Hodgins Engineering building where they'll smash "the Wall of Poverty" and bust open homemmade poverty pinatas stuffed with Make Poverty History bracelets. After that they'll descend on the Main St. Fortinos for three hours (5pm - 8pm) of talking to the public about what they can do (buying Fair Trade foods, pushing for higher foreign aid rates) to help eliminate extreme poverty.It's an extraordinary effort by a group that should be lauded for taking the all too uncommon step of thinking about something other than themselves, their toys, their careers and their studies.But.I can't help but wonder about the real value of awareness-raising events and programs like this (or the Make Poverty History campaign which saw hard-working, well-intentioned volunteers devote hour after hour to the task of getting schoolkids across the country to sign and display giant anti-poverty banners.Is this really the best use of all that energy, all those good intentions? Might it not be better spent collecting food, rejuvenating public facilities in needy neighbourhood, mentoring inner-city children, confronting the wealthy directly?Or maybe, the same thing can be said about my job?

February 27, 2007

From time to time I'll be posting video news reports here, (these are video's I do for thespec.com's front page) and I need to know what format will work best for the blog and you, dear reader.On the information highway, video is a big, fat, slow-moving truck that won't pull over, so I'm a little concerned about the impact of adding it (or sound files) to the blog. Our blog service offers several different ways to add video - ranging from using streaming technology to employing flash players and other video hosting services. And then throw into the mix the different operating systems, different web browser and .... well, forget the details, what matters is the experience.And that's what I'd like to know about -below are two methods of posting videos- in this case a report on the Health Initiative For Youth Hamilton open house yesterday. Please, if you can spare a moment let me know which method works for you - in terms of speed of loading, quality of the video and audio, the whole experience. Add your comments or email me at bdunphy@thespec.com.ThanksBill Dunphy

I spent an hour or two at the new offices of the Health Initiatives For Youth (151 York Boulevard) meeting Deb Laberge, Bridget Marsdin, Dave on reception and their two student workers from Mohawk, Jessica and Sara. Came away with a web story, a story for the newspaper and a video for the web.Here's the video:

February 26, 2007

I spent an hour or two at the new offices of the Health Initiatives For Youth (151 York Boulevard) meeting Deb Laberge, Bridget Marsdin, Dave on reception and their two student workers from Mohawk, Jessica and Sara. Came away with a web story, a story for the newspaper and a video for the web. Here's the video:

"Health Initiatives For Youth Hamilton" is ready to show off their new digs at 151 York Blvd (opposite Sir John A Macdonald school) with an open house that runs today from 4pm - 6 pm.HIYH (the Planned Parenthood Society of Hamilton reborn) explains it's role this way:

Health Initiatives for Youth is dedicated to empowering the diverse
youth of our City to make healthy lifestyle choices and informed
healthcare decisions by ensuring comprehensive health and wellness
supports, education and services in a non-judgemental and supportive
environment.

The name — and a good chunk of their mandate — was apparently adopted from an innovative San Francisco sexual health initiative that targeted gay youth who were being hard hit by HIV-AIDS. In the 90s they expanded their mandate to deal with a broad range of sexual health education and advocacy.What's sexual health have to do with poverty?Here's one example, two words long: teen pregnancy.

While teen pregnancy rates have been on a steady - and heartening - downward trend for more than a decade, Hamilton's rates still run as much as 15 per cent higher than the provincial average. And make no mistake, for all but a few, teen pregnancy is a one-way ticket to poverty. That rate was one of the key public health indicators that sparked city community services director Joe-Anne Priel to push for the creation of what became the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.When Planned Parenthood took a hard look at who was using their services and realized the need had shifted away from womens rights to contraceptives and to the sexual health needs of inner city youth, they changed their name and their mandate.Today you can come out and see for yourself how they intend to meet that challenge.

Bill Dunphy

(The graph is from a 2005 public health report, Social Health and Issues Report, Family Health chapter, which is available as a .pdf here)

February 23, 2007

Budget stories rarely rank high on the list of sought-after assignments for journalists: budget documents are highly formalized, arcane collections of information and intentions, dense with tables and numbers — in short, all the things that caused most journalists to flee into arts courses during college.Happily not all our readers feel the same.In an earlier post I linked to the city finance department's budget document page, and selected one of those, a summary, to post here. (Warning: it's a 9 MB .pdf file)Loyal reader Gregory Hough took the trouble to download and read the summary and then offered his comments on what he read. After noting that most of the money seems to be going to roads, police and waste management, he zeroed in on poverty:

What's in the 2007 budget for the poor? Not much really. There's a few
extra bucks for our seniors in the old folks homes, but we're looking
into why it costs so much more to care for them. Federal and provincial
assistance have knocked about a million off the Public Health
commitment but since the police are looking for an additional 4
million, I suspect public health is actually on the wane. Healthy happy
people don't commit crimes, we should probably look into that. And as
for the roads, I must admit they do need fixing but it is a sad thing
when we take better care of our aging ashphalt than our aging citizens.

Is this city spending enough on poverty issues?Do you — or anyone you know — have enough information to even answer that question?What kind of stories would you like to see, what kind of questions would you like answered, about this year's budget?

February 22, 2007

Poverty issues look to be dominating the public delegations on the city's $1.04 billion budget. (That's their spending, they need to raise about $600 million — the rest of the money comes from revenue, borrowing and other levels of government).
Of the 20 or so people and groups who've registered with the city clerk to talk to council about the budget proposals, at least 8 are there to address spending on poverty; no other issue or cluster of issues has as many delegates.Among the people and groups who will address councillors are Tom Cooper from McQuesten Legal and Community Services, Steve Varey from the Poverty Roundtable, Sally Palmer from the local social workers Social Action Committee and representatives from the Income Security Working Group. (Note: the speakers may not be speaking on behalf of the groups their listed as being affiliated with.)Key poverty issues in this years budget include transit fare hikes, Delegations are slated to run from 1pm to 4 pm today and from 7:00 - 9:00 this evening. The last delegation slated for the afternoon might be worth sticking around for - Chief Brian Mullen, whose Police Service is looking for a whopping $111 million this year.You can download a copy of the budget summary here (it's a 9 MB .pdf), or go to the city's web site for a full menu of budget documents.There's a complete list of delegates after the jump...

February 21, 2007

The Hamilton Eat Local group will take over the Spectator's auditorium tonight from 7:00-9:00 for a presentation and discussion on food security in Hamilton.They're invitation puts it this way:

Join us to discuss how to improve Hamilton's access to locally-grown, farm fresh food and how
to make our community a healthier place to live, work and grow.Share your ideas on how to get nutritious, local food onto every table in Hamilton, at this free public forum.

In addition to the discussions, Wayne Roberts, co-ordinator of the Toronto Food Policy Council will talk about his experiences working on food security issues.You'll find a some useful tips and resources (including a Spec feature story on the topic) here. on the Eat Local Project web site. The forum is co-sponsored by Environment Hamilton, The Social Planning Research Council, Hamilton Public Health and the Eat Local folks.For more info call 905.572-5967, or email them at eatlocal@environmenthamilton.org.No word on whether snacks will be served.

I'll be heading down to city hall this afternoon to listen in on Joe-Anne Priel (the city's general manager of community services) present a proposal that the city develop a Social Inclusion Policy for Hamilton.(Social Inclusion Policies, which Priel says are quite common in Europe and increasingly being adopted over here, attempt to ensure broad and equal participation in civic life by minimizing barriers arising from economics, abilities, age, location etc. They can range from deeply ambitious, almost transformative, to lip service from what I can tell from a preliminary look around.)I'll write about it tomorrow in the paper, and plan to include a lay out another Canadian city's policy as well as highlighting one example of the suprising barriers faced by someone to participation in a simple activity - competitive swimming.Anyone want to offer thoughts on examples I should use? People I really should talk to? Add a comment, send me an email or show up at the meeting (1:30 at council chambers) and bend my ear.You can find a link to a .pdf copy of the 11 page social inclusion policy proposal on the Emergency and Community Services agenda page of the city web site.